.:Sourness:.
They had been sat at the table of this very loud bar for nearly ten minutes staring at each other.
The waiter still hadn't brought their order, because there was too much trouble at the table where some people played poker and some women gathered around. Of course Cross and Allen weren't there. They had chosen a table at a very discrete corner, and sat there very quietly.
Before that, Cross had asked the boy to come with him and said nothing else. Allen was probably waiting for his master's good will to tell him why he had been brought there.
Not much longer than one minute had passed and the waiter finally came with two glasses and a bottle of wine, placing them in the way of master and apprentice's gazes at each other.
Allen said nothing. He just observed silently all that was happening and wondered what would come next.
As soon as the waiter left, Cross opened the bottle and filled both of the glasses.
"Drink with me." he said.
Allen raised an eyebrow at that and crossed his arms.
"I thought you only drank with women, master," he teased.
The man stared at his apprentice from behind those glasses of his and took a sip of his wine.
"I can't do this right now"
Cross didn't fail to notice the tiny mockery smile taking form on the boy's lips.
"Why is that? You don't have money left to spend on them?"
"There's no such a thing, stupid apprentice. Women will still gather around me and drink with me wherever I want, have I money or not."
With such reply, Allen's expression contorted into a distasteful one, but Cross couldn't help but smile at that.
"Earlier, today, when I was drinking wine with some fine women, I thought that the taste was very odd. Then I asked for another, and another, but they all tasted odd to my mouth. I wonder if it is my taste that has altered."
Allen listened very quietly and attentively to what his master told him. Cross, suddenly feeling very baffled at such free and undivided attention, supped the wine once again and looked very deeply into the pair of eyes across the table.
He sighed. "This odd taste isn't unpleasant" he said, his voice a bit hoarse. "It makes me see snow white instead of red, black or golden. Or any other colour."
"Master, I don't understand what you say."
The general took another sip of his wine and gently pushed the other glass towards Allen.
"If you do this to me, it's your obligation to let me do something to you." he stated. "So drink with me."
Allen's eyes were open wide, and his expression showed how confused he was. He had no idea of what his master was talking about. Cross was aware of that, but Allen would have to figure it out on his own.
He knew that Allen didn't drink, but he also didn't drink with men, so it should make everything even.
"I don't know what I have done to you, master... but I didn't intend to do anything."
"This is why I ask you to drink with me and not simply order you to."
The silence was heavy. Because they were so tense. But when Allen's eyes diverted from his master's gaze and rested upon the glass of wine in front of him, Cross felt some of the tensity leaving his shoulders. Even though the people around them found it rather nasty of Cross to have a kid drink wine with him and started to stare.
"Master," called the boy, "people will think badly of you if I drink it."
"I don't mind it a single bit", he replied, calmly, having another sip of his wine, his lips curving into a smile of satisfaction, so oddly savoury the wine tasted right now.
"Then I don't mind it either." Allen finally said, taking the glass in his fingers.
Maybe Allen was clueless, maybe he was just pretending to be clueless. But Cross knew well enough that Allen had always had a strong will and nothing would make him drink that wine if he didn't want to. Yet he did.
Just like Allen unknowingly made his master's taste for wine change, Cross hoped to be the one to tell and show Allen how wine tasted, and how it could change from intoxicating sweetness to sourness that only made his throat crave for even more. And as he watched the liquid of sourness disappear into the boy's mouth, he couldn't help but wonder if sourness was sweet to Allen and if wine would ever taste sweet again.
But he doesn't care, because the sourness orders him to drink more until he drowns, and that's all he wants to do.
A/N: I hope it wasn't very confusing!
This fiction turned out a little different than what I wanted to write at first, but when I read this again... I couldn't think of anything else that I could have written.
I just though that the idea of comparing sweetness to women and sourness to Allen was a bit too tempting. Because to Cross, who is very fond of women, something like being with a man would be sour. But it's Allen, and he can't help to crave for the wine of sourness. Besides, the constant thinking of Allen doesn't allow him to think of the wine as sweet when there are women around him, he realised he wants Allen to be around him instead.
eheh
well, that's it! Thank you for reading!